10 Brutal and Horrifying Religious Ceremonies
10.
Scalp Dances
While anyone who has seen any traditional westerns or Inglourious Basterds has heard
of the Native American practice of removing the scalps of enemies, particularly among
tribes like the Apache.
It’s much less likely you’re aware of the ceremony and etiquette that went into
using them for post-battle celebrations and ceremonies.
For one, they were not to be conducted if the victorious tribe had suffered heavy casualties
or if the chief was wounded in the battle.
Furthermore, the scalps were to be given to the women for them.
They would be either paraded about triumphantly or to be dragged through the dirt contemptuously.
If there were any grieving widows, the scalps were to be used to symbolically wipe away
their tears as if they were facial tissues.
9.
“Respectful” Mongolian Executions
Although the Mongols are heavily associated with seemingly mindless murders, as it happened
they had protocol for putting certain respected figures to death that was even worse than
mere quick decapitation.
They would wrap them in cloth (rugs, a bag, etc.) and then crush them with stones or trampling
horse hooves, often slowly and practically into paste to ensure death.
This was so that none of their blood would touch the ground out of a belief that if the
blood of someone of a royal (regardless of whether they were a Mongol or not) touched
the ground, it would offend their gods.
One of the more noteworthy of the persons killed this way was the Caliph of Baghdad
in 1258 because his death destroyed the unified Islamic power structure of the Middle East
and spawned almost a millennium of bru1tal conflict among Muslim branches.
8.
Self-Impalement
Purification through voluntary pain is a common theme in religions all over the world, but
one of the more memorable examples of it takes place in the town of Phucket in Southern Thailand
on September 30 as part of a nine-day vegetarian festival.
There are dozens of people who will stab themselves through the cheeks with everything from knives
to gun barrels, and stick such things as umbrella handles, shovels, tricycle handles, and flower
bouquets through the holes.
Unsurprisingly this draws spectators that number around 100,000.
The origin of this spectacle was a meditation practice that would help them endure inhuman
amounts of pain.
Seems like the vegetarian aspect of the festival would be pretty much completely overshadowed
by it.
7.
Sparagmos
Unlike the other entries on this list, there is some debate over the reality of this next
practice.
Some believe that it was just a bit of theatrical symbolism of the cycle of death and rebirth,
and others cite accounts that claim specific years that the ceremony took place.
Not that it’s something anyone would particularly want to be true.
Sparagmos means to rip or to tear in Greek.
In this case, it refers to a ceremony to commemorate an event wherein the baby Greek god Dionysus
was torn apart by Titans, figures which existed before gods in their mythology.
This was reenacted by ceremonies where followers would take a variety of different symbolic
beings that included bulls, goats, and babies, according to legend (one that reportedly occurred
in 276 b.c.
involved three Persian youths), and rip them apart after the cultists worked themselves
up into a frenzy.
6.
Agoge
In the farfetched 2007 film 300, the ritual from the ancient Greek city of Sparta known
as the Agoge was portrayed in a very whitewashed fashion.
While we are shown how the religious ritual involved sending young men out into the world
with the expectation that they’d only be allowed back into society after they proved
they could depend on only their own abilities with a blanket and a spear, the encouraged
survival methods didn’t usually involve killing gigantic wolves or anything so glorious.
The truth was that youths taking part in the Agoge were sanctioned by the state to stalk
and murder slaves (“helots” in Greek).
You can understand why a movie that claimed the Spartans fought for freedom and enlightenment
wouldn’t want to portray that.
5.
Torture Exorcisms
Although the main association readers today will have with exorcisms in the 1973 film
The Exorcist or the 2010 film The Last Exorcism, the practice is by no means only one related
to Christianity, and they do a lot of harm.
Because they often entail what amounts to physical abuse, there are numerous stories
of people dying from rituals that are meant to cleanse their spirits.
For example, on July 14, 2014, a woman identified as Haseena died from internal bleeding during
a form of exorcism performed by an exorcist named “Sirajuddin.”
On June 15, 2015, a woman from Uganda was granted asylum in the U.K. because she had
endured an exorcism due to her being a lesbian, a ritual that involved “sharp cuts and laceration”.
It is definitely one of the more disturbing aspects of religion gone wrong.
In Western culture as well numerous people have died while violent exorcism rituals were
performed, such as when on December 24, 2010 Kristy Bamu (pictured above) was drowned in
a bathtub in London.
4.
Child Sacrifice
We mentioned child sacrifice being performed by ancient Greeks in entry number six, and
it is definitely something we’d only associate with ancient times.
We also imagine people would only be willing to do it under dire circumstances, such as
appeasing a wrathful god or during a national crisis.
It turns out some people are willing to do it today for reasons that seem terribly small.
In Uganda, there has been a rise in the number of children being sacrificed, first reported
in 2006 and rising to 29 of them by 2009.
The sacrifices involved either killing the kidnapped child outright or removing a part
of their body as an offering such as an ear, the heart, the genitals, etc.
The persons who pay for these horrible crimes are supposedly enticed by the claim that the
sacrifice will solve a personal problem in their lives, and as reported, come from all
walks of life in Uganda, including senior political positions.
It’s certainly not just the poor and uneducated that turn to this.
Thankfully a number of charitable organizations, such as Children on Edge and the Ugandan Adolescent
Development Support Network are combining efforts to combat this.
3.
Cannibal Executions
In 1979, debate flared up with the publication of The Man Eating Myth about whether any tribe
anywhere in the world had ever actually eaten other humans for reasons aside from desperation.
The idea behind this historical revisionism was that it was a way to justify European
and American imperialism by claiming the lands that were being seized had been inhabited
by primitives violating the ultimate taboo.
Today it is now well confirmed that the ritualistic eating of flesh is a practice still performed
into the modern age by at least one known tribe, the Korowai in Papua New Guinea.
This tribe of roughly 4,000 would primarily perform cannibalism as a form of punishment.
It was for “khakhua,” which roughly translates as “male witch,” the apparent rationale
that warlocks will themselves perform cannibalism.
While the body of the executed person is distributed throughout clans, the head is left for the
family that put the person to death.
Such a practice was officially banned in New Guinea in the early 1970s, though some locals
insisted to Smithsonian Magazine that it persisted.
Considering that having an entire clan eat a person puts them at risk of a horrible disease
called “Kuru,” it would undoubtedly be in their own best interests to abandon the
practice matter what sort of punishment they may want to give a warlock.
2.
Real Crucifixion
Most of the Catholic Church is opposed to the practice, but around the city of Manilla
in the Philippines, people have themselves nailed to crosses for real as a tribute to
the martyrdom of Jesus Christ.
The practice in this region began in the 1950s and since then allegedly not a single person
has died from the practice because of precautions such as soaking the nails in rubbing alcohol
for pretty much the rest of the year.
Even local bishops believe the custom reflects improper education in the region regarding
the nature of what Christ’s martyrdom was supposed to represent.
However, that doesn’t seem to be the case for many of the participants, some of whom
have have come from places around the world, although admittedly those tend to be the minority.
Amazingly some people, such as Danilo Ramos, claim to have done this as many as 23 times.
1.
Conversion Through Rape
Although Imams that are not under the sway of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (the
notorious ISIS), such as Ajmal Masroor, condemn this as a desecration of Islamic law instead
of something with a legitimate basis in the Quran, in October of 2015 it was reported
that ISIS terrorists had begun performing mass rapes with the evil claim that doing
so would convert the non-Muslims, such as the Yazidi people.
According to a statement issued by Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, if a woman is raped by 10 different
terrorists, then she will become a follower of Allah.
Making the situation even worse for victims of this is that they came from communities
that did not have progressive attitudes, so merely not shaming these women for being victims
was a step forward.
At least there’s the fact that this action on the part of ISIS has been cited as evidence
that they were deeply desperate for new recruits after an air offensive by Russia, however
sincere their religious convictions were.